In race against time, SPPL crawls

MUMBAI, MARCH 25: The Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp Limited's SPPL board meeting, held after a gap of two months on Wednesday, was expec...

MUMBAI, MARCH 25: The Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp Limited8217;s SPPL board meeting, held after a gap of two months on Wednesday, was expected to start with a bang. It didn8217;t; it started and ended with a whimper. Only two contracts were finalised, that too in principle, for constructing nearly 7,500 tenements on open plots given by MHADA at Turbhe-Mandale and Dindoshi.Given the short time the SPPL has to meet its promised target of 50,000 houses by the end of this year, the lack of urgency in the company8217;s functioning was manifest in the meet attended by a team that is now said to be fully handpicked by Housing Minister Sureshdada Jain.

The contract for building nearly 3,000 tenements at Turbhe-Mandale will be given to Jog constructions for Rs 77 crore, while the Dindoshi contract 4,500 tenements will be given to Vilayati Ram Mittal, a Delhi-based company, for Rs 96 crore. However, both the contracts are subject to various conditions being fulfilled first by SPPL, housing secretary and SPPL managingdirector Govind Swaroop told Express Newsline.

This would include permission for access roads at both sites from the railways. The railways have still not given its approval for the access roads in writing.

Though Swaroop is confident that all clearances will be available within the next 15 days, past experience has shown otherwise. Wednesday8217;s decision on the contracts for Turbhe and Dindoshi only put a stamp of approval on the lowest bidders.

The project to construct rehabilitation tenements at private land acquired by SPPL at Wadala was also discussed, said Swaroop, but the land is blocked due under the Urban Land Ceiling Act ULCRA. Unless the state government repeals the Act, the land is useless. SPPL sources said the very decision of accepting private unusable land in lieu of Transfer of Developmental Rights TDR is unsound.

Despite having quite a lengthy agenda, the SPPL meeting did not discuss the important issue of funding 25,000 tenements being constructed by private builders in projectsalready sanctioned by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority SRA. While it was proposed that general guidelines would be presented for financing all old schemes, it was learnt that stress was being laid on assessing schemes on an individual basis to favour certain schemes. In fact, sources said, efforts are on to get money sanctioned for the controversial slum rehabilitation scheme at MP Mill compound at Tardeo, where 1,700 hutments are to be built. Senior SPPL officials revealed that six or seven individual cases are being pushed by the company for approval, but the aim is to get the Tardeo scheme passed, where it is alleged that Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray is involved and Dilip Thakkar is the builder concerned.

Swaroop informed that though today8217;s meeting lasted for over two hours, only projects on open plots were discussed. Other issues will be taken up at the next meeting to be held on March 26.